1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a remote control apparatus and a remote control method applied to remote controlling for electronic devices, for example, based on a radio communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
To remotely control an in-home apparatus under control, for example, a television receiver, when 2.4 GHz band Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) use band is used, as its advantages, it is less affected by shadings and has longer range than an infrared system. In addition, since the reception side returns an acknowledge to the controller side, even if it fails to communicate with the reception side, it retransmits a control signal to the reception side. As a result, the user's operation can be securely transmitted to the reception side.
Such a remote control apparatus may control apparatus disposed in an adjacent room or a next door house without user's intension. Thus, when the user purchases and sets up a television receiver, it is necessary to correlate the remote control apparatus (hereinafter referred to as the remote controller) and the television receiver to allow the user to control the television receiver (this operation is referred to as pairing). Pairing means exchanging of identification information (ID) of the remote controller and that of the electronic device under control. An ID is an address that identifies an electronic device. The same ID may be used for the same group ID (referred to as a group ID). An ID is for example, a 64-bit extended unique identifier (EUI64) or a message authentication code (MAC) address that is assigned when the electronic device is produced or one created from a MAC address or the like.
In the past, pairing was automatically performed when the user purchased a television receiver. In other words, the television receiver enters a pairing acceptance state within a predetermined period after the power of the television receiver is initially turned on. The television receiver displays a message that indicates that it is registering the remote controller on its display. When a battery is initially attached to the remote controller that has not been used and a key is pressed, it automatically transmits a pairing request. After pairing is complete, the television receiver displays a message that indicates that pairing has been complete is displayed. Thus, when the power of the television receiver is turned on, the battery is attached to the remote controller, and then its key is initially pressed, pairing is complete. If such initial pairing fails, a regular pairing process is performed.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-135930, hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 1, discloses a technique about pairing. In this technique, when an image capturing apparatus and a receiver are paired and a video signal and an audio signal are radio transmitted therebetween, the image capturing apparatus captures a unique information code that represents the receiver and obtains the unique information code such that pairing can be easily performed. However, since the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1 used an image capturing apparatus, it was not suitable to a remote control system for a television receiver.